There are people in my life who, for four months of the year, I only ever see when they are wearing their coat – people I chat to on the school run, neighbours I wave at, old colleagues who walk their dogs past my house. From November to February, their coat represents their entire sartorial presence in my life. They could be having a midlife crisis and dressing in pyjamas or cocktail dresses, and I'd be none the wiser. Duffel Coat Tina could be wearing nipple tassels for all I know, but she'd still be Duffel Coat Tina to me.

My point is that we are all Duffel Coat Tina to someone. So your coat matters: there might be interesting messages going on in your choice of winter dresses, but a lot of people won't get to read the small print. Most of us don't consider fashion when buying coats, and I blame coat hooks. Our coats don't live in our wardrobes, with clothes-as-in-fashion, but in the hall, with clothes-as-in-kit: wellies, gloves, umbrellas.

Now, the functionality of a coat is paramount, and there will be many days in winter when all you want is to be warm and dry, but winter is a long old drag and there will be times when other things feel important: the impression you make on the outside world, or just the instinct now and then to throw practicality to the wind.

Put down your mental checklist of what is sensible, and a whole new world of coat shopping opens up, and the high street is doing its best to tempt us with shaggy-fur coats that will be a horror show in the lightest shower; sleeveless coats for days when you want a warm torso and frozen limbs; pale wool coats that'll spend half their time at the dry cleaner. The point is, they are part‑time coats: together, they make up a coat wardrobe, but none is a practical purchase on its own. You need the shaggy coat while the pale one is at the cleaner's, the sleeveless one to wear while the shaggy one dries out.

This gold coat, say, isn't very warm and needs clamping closed with one arm if the wind blows. It makes no attempt to earn a functional place on the coat hooks. But I do quite fancy being the woman in the gold coat.

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